


Eight Minutes

by Ranowa



Series: I Dream of Dying [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Doctor John Watson, Episode Fix-It: s03e03 His Last Vow, Hospitalization, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, John Watson Loves Sherlock Holmes, John is a Mess, M/M, Major Character Injury, Sherlock Holmes Loves John Watson, Sherlock is a Mess, fix-it fix-it fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23791321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa
Summary: Sherlock dies three times in three years, and John makes a different decision.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: I Dream of Dying [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729027
Comments: 29
Kudos: 339





	Eight Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> I was always a little surprised at the lack of non-complicated HLV fix-its. Just a handwave to Magnussen and the mess that was the ending and the tarmac, just a no, fuck you, I want Sherlock and John to be happy. Well, be the change you want to see in the world, right? :D 
> 
> Written in a day, with overuse of an extended metaphor and hurt Sherlock abounds! Enjoy!

Sherlock surfaces to a heat pressing in about him from all sides, a pressure that scrapes him hollow from the inside out, and white noise.

He floats.

He is real and he is not. He's in the ocean with his head a hundred miles from his body, detached and gone numb in a sea of opiates that deaden nerves and make them sing all together, and he is here in this bed with an inferno in his chest and every inch of his skin flayed alive.

He floats, and he _hurts._

* * *

He floats, he hurts, and he _knows._

He knows the steps of a nurse, four month pregnant and it's a boy; he smells the latex hands of a doctor plying his chest in two and burning him alive. He sees a cardiac arrest in the hall and a bus on the street outside and a grieving mother in the lobby and rain in the floor and grass in the sky. His mind, it is so terribly fast; he doesn't know how he knows these things but he does because he can not turn himself off and he is high and glorious and blood pools in his chest and he is dying of a broken heart and it's not metaphorical whimsy.

"There you are," John says. "There you are. Good morning."

His eyes are dew-bright and wet. An ocean. Salt water in his chest; he's drowning in his own lungs.

"No, you can't talk just yet. You're intubated, Sherlock. See? Not for much longer. We're trying to get you breathing on your own. We're just giving you a little rest for a bit."

John has the loveliest voice Sherlock has ever heard. Has he ever told him that? Especially the way he says his name. Sher-lock. Sher-lock he's mad, when he's done something wrong, but he elides it when not, when it's casual, when the game is on and everything is fantastic. Sherl-ck. Sherl-ck, he says. Did you do the shopping? You want a cuppa? Did you solve it, Sherl-ck? Don't do this. Don't. We're losing you. _Sher-lock._

"Your vitals look great. For someone half-dead, but... great. Really. Keep on going, just like that, Sherlock. You're doing just fine."

John's holding a hand. Clasped in both of his, rubbing it; it's ice-cold and bloodless and chalk-white. A block of ice and John melts it, melts him. It's his hand. John is the sun and Sherlock is Icarus, but he's been falling for two years and the sun chases him to the crash of waves below, and he chokes and he drowns and dear god he'd love to burn alive if it meant the tide was gone.

"-my god. You madman. Just sleep, I'm so sorry. You'll feel better soon-"

Nonsense. _Nonsense._ John, he says, but he can't; his throat is full and his mouth is numb and his chest is a bonfire. Don't say you're sorry. It's my fault. I've done it wrong again. It's always my fault.

"No, _no,_ Sherlock, don't try to talk, jesus. We've already got you on enough morphine to flatten a horse, you can't do this, don't fight it. Sherlock."

 _Sherlock._ You don't tell John. Don't tell John, Sherlock. John Watson is in danger.

But he's not, because Sherlock's already told him, and John's furious with him, he's furious with Mary, he's furious all around, he's holding Sherlock's hand but he's going to go away. The sky bleeds and the world burns and there's a white dress speckled with rose petals like blood and John's going to go away.

"No, _Jesus,_ don't cry. What's wrong? What do you need? You're going to be okay. Sherlock-"

* * *

Sherlock's been shot before. It never hurt like this.

* * *

It's nighttime, and John is asleep. He knows he's asleep because he can hear him dreaming. John doesn't have good dreams.

Sherlock plays violin, when he dreams at Baker Street. But he doesn't have his violin here, and even if he did he wouldn't be able to hold it, so that's a no go. Sherlock can hear how close he is and would touch him instead, but his hand is no longer a part of him; he could no sooner squeeze John's hand than he could fly. He could talk to him, but he can't, actually, and that's a problem.

John's breaths hitch, and it's all his fault. It is.

Sherlock lets his eyes drift shut. With every scrap of will left inside him, lacerated and torn to shreds and fractured all over a sidewalk and wedding and penthouse floor, he fights for a breath.

The ventilator screeches an alarm.

John is all over him. John is talking to him, demanding something, giving him an order, and Sherlock is leaden and floating all at once, and John talks to him, but the words are sunlight through water and he doesn't care at all what is said. It hurts.

* * *

John strokes his hair. John's shirt creases and his hair sticks and he looks like he's trying to grow that awful mustache again. John's not been home since he found Sherlock in a drug den. John has a pregnant wife and John's not been home in two weeks. John strokes his hair.

Two weeks.

John touches his hair, his face, his chest. He cradles his heart in his bare hands and Sherlock lets him have it. "It's getting higher again," but he's not looking at Sherlock. His eyes are galaxies and his hands are the heat of every star in the irrelevant solar system. "You're trying to just melt your massive brain, aren't you? Damn it, Sherlock. _Stop this."_

He'd quite love to. Stop this, that is.

He tries to smile but is underwater, and does John know that? He's the anchor keeping him drowning and the driftwood keeping him afloat, and Sherlock should tell him so, but John keeps shushing him. "Shh," John breathes, "you'll be just fine, Sherlock. I've got you."

Of course he does. Of course he has Sherlock. He can't escape even if he wants to.

He should tell him this, too. But Sherlock blinks and when he opens his eyes, John is gone, and the sun is down and the sun is stars and the pain is muffled and he's so bloody _cold,_ and his teeth would chatter but there's plastic in his mouth and throat and he can't remember how to move his tongue.

"He never does things in halves, does he?"

Mycroft. No. Shoo. _Shoo;_ no one wants you here. Go awayyyyyyy.

"He didn't pick this up trekking around Lannister Gardens, Mycroft. I checked his bloodwork. His white count was going up before he took that header out the window."

"That certainly sounds like my brother."

"He..."

Sherlock stretches his hand. He can move his hand, again. Something warm catches it and he clings on for dear life. Ah, John. Johnjohnjohnjohnjohn.

Don't go, John.

"He was shot through the chest and fighting off a storm of bacteria and had no right to even be standing. He fainted the second it was over and should've fainted the second he got out of bed." John's voice drops lower still and is rough like sandpaper, grating over every inch of Sherlock's skin. He's so _angry._ "He could've killed himself."

"Another thing my brother has an unfortunate habit of doing, then... killing himself for you."

_Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock But neither is it voluntary._

"...What did you just say?"

John clutches Sherlock's hand so tight his nails scratch furrows, and Sherlock sweats and bleeds and a machine hisses his breaths for him, and the world implodes as Mycroft tells the story of his suicide.

Sherlock hates Mycroft.

* * *

When Sherlock is six, Mycroft teaches him to swim on the shore. The tide carries him down the beach until he's no longer in sight, and by the time Mycroft pulls him out he's swallowed four mouthfuls of seawater. Mycroft hits him, and gives him a sugary soda that soothes his throat, and calls him a stupid, incorrigible little boy that won't ever do that ever again.

When Sherlock is ten, Carl Powers dies in a swimming pool, and Sherlock doesn't do anything about it.

When Sherlock is twenty-two, he overdoses. He breaks into his university's swimming pool and he floats on his back and he dies, and Mycroft drags him out, sodden suit and dripping ties and ruined shoes, and Mycroft breathes for him and tells him he won't ever do that ever again. Sherlock thanks him by telling him not to kiss him ever again, either.

When Sherlock is thirty-three, he vomits water into Mycroft's lap as he's driven from Serbian backcountry. Everything hurts and his head has been turned inside out, and he snarls that waterboarding is pathetic and unimaginative and stupid, and saltwater and snot runs into his mouth, and he hates it and wants to die.

When Sherlock is thirty-four, he drowns at his best friend's wedding. He sticks his head under the water and he swallows and swallows with a smile and then he goes home and throws it all up and he drowns. B-e-s-t f-r-i-e-n-d.

When Sherlock is thirty-four, he's shot through the chest and drowns in his own blood.

What he's trying to say is that he's spent his life drowning, and he's never learned how to swim. John pulls him out of the water, but Sherlock is Icarus: it's his fate to drown, and John is his sun. He promises the world, but Sherlock is a stupid, incorrigible little boy that will always fly too close, and he'll always burn, and he'll always drown.

* * *

Sherlock drowns until he gags. He swallows plastic and antiseptic and he chokes, and he's surrounded on all sides by hands and white coats and starbursts, but John tells him to take a deep breath and cough and he does. He coughs, and then the tube is gone.

"There he is."

"John," he says, but nothing comes out, and his throat tastes of razor blades and cacti.

"No, shh." John presses him down, and a full-body convulsion screams and would've torn him apart if John wasn't holding him so still. "Don't talk yet. Though I'm sure you're dying to. You can deduce me in a minute."

John's never left. John is angry and sad and tired and wants a proper cup of tea. John's his doctor. John's not wearing his wedding ring. John palms his face and feels his forehead and says something to someone else, his voice low with worry, and Sherlock takes three tries to latch onto his hand and not let him go.

"Sherlock? What's wrong?" John leans closer, so close, almost nose to nose; he searches his eyes, he moves his finger back and forth, he holds his face still. "Eyes on me. What do you-"

Sherlock opens his mouth, and rasps, "Mary."

John's face falls.

_Don't tell John. You don't tell John._

There's something else. John, talking again, urgent, almost frightened. But Sherlock is falling, too, and his throat hurts, and oh Sherlock is just so very tired of drowning.

* * *

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?"

"...John."

"I don't want you here. You- you've got _no right_ to be here. _Get out!"_

"I just... wanted to..."

"To what? Talk to him? You can't, because he just got a dammed tube pulled out of his throat. Or did you maybe just want to finish the job?"

"...he told you that you could trust me."

...

"John-"

"His heart stopped. _Again."_

"John."

_**"Get out."** _

* * *

Sherlock breaks the surface, and John is gruff and weary and tired, and grins with red eyes. But he _smiles_ at him, and when was the last time John had smiled at him like that? He _smiles._

"Hello. Think you can stay awake, this time?"

Sherlock doesn't remember a last time. He nods, regardless, and John favors him with a second smile.

"I'll believe you if you're still about in a few minutes. For now, let's just start with some ice chips."

"Coffee," Sherlock spits. He doesn't actually want coffee, but he does want the look John gives him, which is three parts fond and three parts incredulity and four parts no-nonsense army doctor.

"Uh, no. No liquids, and no caffeine, you self-destructive moron. You're not allowed caffeine, and you don't _need_ caffeine. You're not to be doing anything but resting and playing scrabble on your phone." John stands above him, because Sherlock can't sit- can hardly feel most of his body, to be quite honest- and he feeds him ice chips, one at a time. He's wearing gloves. There's blood on his collar. _He_ is Sherlock's doctor.

Pride unfolds in his splintered chest. Pride and warmth and a melting joy that is so very stupid, because John is not here to stay, but John is here now and Sherlock is not one to care about the end. He only cares about the now.

The now is John, hand-feeding him ice chips, his eyes red and his face rough with stubble, and Sherlock is in agony, and content.

"I mean it, you know," John says. Ice chip number three; his throat cries in pain and relief in equal measure. "You're not to be doing anything that includes getting out of that bed without explicit medical permission. _My_ permission."

Sherlock knows. He can feel it, down to the stitches inside his chest; he'd been dying before and now he's even worse. He's to be imprisoned here for months, and not even "I live with a doctor" will set him free. He doesn't live with a doctor anymore.

He'd known it when he'd climbed out the window. Some sacrifices are necessary. His always seem to entail falling from high places.

"Surprised-" He stops, swallowing, and starts again. "Surprised 'm not cuffed." He wriggles his wrists. Along one bare arm marches a series of track marks; the other is bruised and dark from the constant application of an IV. It aches.

John smirks. It's delightful. "You were. You picked the damn locks. After that Mycroft decided there was no point in restraining you."

"Mycroft can stuff it."

"No, _you_ can stuff it." John feeds him more ice, looking thoughtful. "You're never allowed a hospital room with a window again. I'm serious, it's in your file, now."

He'd figured that, too. A necessary sacrifice. _John Watson is in danger._

He tries to say something clever. A quip that he's sure to die if not even allowed a window, that he'll waste away from lack of vitamin D and it'll be all John's fault, won't it, now, but the words are slippery in his throat and fall away. No matter. It was stupid, anyway. He grapples for John's hand instead, pulling it away before he could pass over the next ice-chip. His strong, surgeon's hands: skilled. A marksman. Acclimatized to violence. Strong moral principle. No wedding ring.

John peers at him again, closer now. "You're high, aren't you?"

Sherlock shakes his head, and John looks at him, so he nods. He giggles. "As such." He pulls at the latex, wanting to touch John's skin without this barrier that smells like medicine, and John lets him with the fondest smile he's ever seen.

"We'll talk later, then."

"Yes, John."

John gives him more ice.

John stops.

His face has fallen, again. He looks away, his face grey, and it takes Sherlock too long to realise he's staring at his left hand. Ice melts in the palm, a pool that leaks and drips down to his blanket.

"John-"

"You're such a bastard. You know that?"

But he's not mad. He'd been so angry, back at Baker Street, but now he's not, and Sherlock doesn't know what he's meant to do. "I've been reliably informed as such, yes."

"You couldn't have figured it out earlier. You couldn't have deduced this before the bloody wedding."

Ah. So that's the problem.

"I was wrong," Sherlock says, and it _grates._ It is _disgusting._ "I'm sorry." It hurts every inch of the bullet they'd dug out of his chest. He should've seen, but he didn't, and now what.

Now what?

"I'm married to her, Sherlock. There's going-" He covers his mouth with one hand, shoulders sagged. "There's going to be a _baby."_

Yes. There is.

"What am I gong to do, Sherlock?"

"Obvious, isn't it?" John looks at him with a frown, befuddled, and Sherlock shrugs back. He sucks on ice. "You're married, with a baby on the way. I'm rather sure you're meant to go home. To baby Watson. And-" he can't say it. "And be married. Do whatever it is married people do." _I died for you but forgot to ask you to wait for me._

John stares at him again, for a long few, unbearable seconds. "She shot you."

"...yeeeees, we established that." What is the point, in stating the obvious? What does that change? "I'm sure she's not going to shoot _you,_ though, John. You're quite safe."

"But that's not-" John pauses, his brow furrowed, then just shakes his head. "You need to sleep. We'll talk about this later." He stands again, feeling his cheek with the back of his hand. Whatever temperature he finds clearly doesn't make him happy, because his face creases again in worry and he tsks his tongue. "Maybe we can try sitting up next time."

Sherlock doesn't want this- want _any of this._ He doesn't understand the problem and he hates how John's looking at him and he already can't stand to rot away here in this bed re-learning how to breathe and swallow and _sit up._

But John is still _here,_ John is _looking at him,_ and the hand slides from Sherlock's temperature to his hair, and he's missed him. He's missed him so much. Don't go, John. I'm sorry. Don't go.

He closes his eyes, and sinks again.

* * *

Sherlock sinks and floats on the ebb and flow of morphine. His circadian rhythm is decimated and his internal clock lies in pieces all over the floor.

He wakes to the lights having been dimmed, the noises of the hospital switched to their nighttime cadence, and pain that coils like a snake.

John's here, of course.

There's a second bed in the room. Sherlock clearly does not have a roommate- another notation in his NHS file- so the only assumption is that the bed is meant for John. But John isn't using it. John sags by his side, folded over in two with a file in his lap and his head on the bed. Soldiers really could sleep anywhere.

He used to sleep like this at Baker Street.

He's not sleeping well. He's not at all. He'd sleep better in the bed, but Sherlock is nothing but selfish, and he'd much rather John stay exactly where he is.

It's so easy to stroke his hair.

Sherlock loves his hair. He's never told him that, either, has he? Sherlock's hair is so... _irritating._ Curls are high-maintenance and messy, and they either frizz or tangle depending on the weather's mood, and he look ridiculous instead of mysterious. John's hair is wonderful. It's short and reasonable and military-straight, and without that dreadful mustache he looks wonderful. Did he ever tell him that? He'd thought it, at the wedding. But the sight had filled him with knives and one man telling another he looked beautiful at his own wedding was probably something he wasn't supposed to do, so he hadn't.

He probably doesn't look beautiful now. He's lived in this room for days, his face and hands creased from the gloves and mask, and his eyes are always bloodshot and he just looks _sad_ whenever he thinks Sherlock can't see. He ought not look beautiful now. A stupid and senseless social construct, anyway; there's no objective standards for it at all, and Sherlock is a scientist, not an idiot ruled by subjectivity.

Asleep there, his hair in Sherlock's hand, his head just brushing against his thigh, he is beautiful.

Sherlock thinks about London's eight minute ambulance, and how much easier everything would be if it were a nine minute ambulance instead.

He thinks _don't go. I know what it feels like to die and that's how it's feels when you go,_ but what he says is "I'm sorry,", and he he keeps his eyes open and on John for as long as he can.

And to think. He'd actually liked Mary.

* * *

"J'hn. _John."_

"What is it? What's wrong?"

...

"You're not bleeding again- there's no fever- what's... _Jesus,_ Sherlock, what's this? Why is this so low?"

"Have to... mmm. Have to think. To-"

"No," John snaps, "you don't." He re-clicks the morphine infusion back to high, and swings the PCA out of arm's reach.

_"J'hn."_

"No," John orders again, gripping Sherlock's hands as the tide rises. "Stop this. Stop this now."

He doesn't want to, but John holds him under he drowns.

* * *

We'll talk later, as it turns out, means _we'll talk tomorrow._

"Eight minutes," John says. He sits on the edge of Sherlock's bed, watching him with a critical, doctor's eye.

Sherlock doesn't like not understanding, but his brain is working at about twenty percent capacity. He lowers the morphine infusion rate again, even as it makes John's eyes twitch. It doesn't help. "Eight minutes for a London ambulance?"

"Right. It is." But John doesn't smile. "That's also how long you were dead for. Eight minutes."

Ah.

The noise of the heart monitor is suddenly earsplitting.

John waits for several moments, just watching him. He still looks awful, but there's something deliciously dangerous there, now- he's smiling in that way that only John Watson can. The smile that he'd worn approximately four seconds before punching Sherlock's lights out the night of his resurrection.

It shouldn't, but the smile thrills him.

"Do you know the chances of a patient making a full recovery after a cardiac arrest, Sherlock?"

Sherlock swallows. Water, now; he's been upgraded to liquid water. Joy of all joys. "Nope."

"Ten percent. Roughly- give or take a few." John continues to smile, and there's nothing pleasant about it. He looks as pained as Sherlock feels. "Do you know the chances of a patient making a full recovery after their heart stopping for _eight minutes?"_

"Are you merely wanting to recite statistics at me, or are you actually trying to prove a point?"

"It doesn't happen," John says smoothly. "It's the miracle they teach you about in med school, and the case you'll never actually see. You're going to have a dozen articles written about you and the next generation of med students are going to learn resuscitation procedure on your case. You should be dead, Sherlock. You _were."_

He was dead. Now he's not.

He doesn't remember it, obviously. And he'd really rather not think about it. He was dead, and for once, it wasn't even his fault. He was dead, and by every scientific understanding, he shouldn't be sitting here to wax metaphors and poetry about his own morality now. He should be dead on a slab in Molly's morgue.

Sherlock doesn't understand the point, and he doesn't understand why John is pressing it. He _hates_ not understanding. "Yes, I almost die on a monthly basis, John. I thought we established years ago that I risk my life to prove I'm clever."

John's mouth twitches, but he is not to be deterred, forging on ahead in battle. "Your heart also stopped in the ambulance on the way back here. Not for eight minutes this time; then you really _would_ be dead. Do you know the chances of a patient recovering from a second cardiac arrest, just a week after the first?"

No. He doesn't. And he doesn't want to.

He sucks water through a terrible plastic straw, and keeps his mouth shut.

"No, I didn't think you did. I'm sure you can make a guess, though. The fact that you're not on Molly's table right now is nothing short of a damn miracle, and if you're going to insist _my wife_ didn't know exactly what odds she was giving you when she shot you, I think you're insulting her intelligence."

Sherlock sighs, glaring away. He really does miss the window. "She could've shot me in the head. No odds at all."

"She could've not shot you at all. Much better odds, that."

"John, I explained why-"

"No, _shut up."_ John snaps up to his feet, rocking the bed, and his stare turns him inside out and he wants to crawl into the floor. "This time you're going to shut up, and you're going to let me make my own _deductions,_ okay? How about that?"

He's clearly not actually asking. Sherlock sucks water loudly again. Maybe if he spills some, it'll get John to stop talking.

"My loving wife shot you. She shot to kill, and called the ambulance and skipped the headshot for appearances only. She didn't expect you to live."

This time, it clearly is a question. Or, John isn't actually _asking,_ but he still is expecting a yes or a no. Sherlock swallows at his tongue, searching for the words, but he's so tired and morphine still blankets his skull, reduced rate or not. "I don't know. Possibly. I think more as an insurance policy."

He dodges the heart of that statement. _She shot to kill._ He sees Mary in a wedding dress, and there's not even a gunshot. Just Mary, and then an explosion of pain in his chest that hasn't stopped since.

The look on John's face says it doesn't go unnoticed.

"Right, then." John folds his arms, his gaze piercing. "A week later, she tries to pull a gun on you a second time- when again, she knew exactly what state you were in. A gust of wind could've blown you over."

"She had no way of knowing I wasn't going to pull a gun on _her,_ John-"

"Yes or no."

He hates this. _"Yes,"_ Sherlock spits, clattering his cup down. He hates this; why doesn't John hate this?

John's not happy, but he doesn't hate it, either. He doesn't stop. He looks at Sherlock in a way that he's never really looked at him, before, and he just doesn't stop. "You have died for me three times in three years. Mary shot you- _killed_ you- for herself."

"No, I explained this already, John, she shot me for _you-"_

"Do you have any idea how horrible that is to hear, Sherlock?! My wife executed my best friend, and you think I want to hear that she did it for _me?!"_

Oh.

When put like that-

No, it's a bit obvious, now.

No, John doesn't want to hear that, because it's not better at all.

Sherlock doesn't know what he's supposed to say, so he doesn't say anything. Probably the smartest option, since he just keeps routinely mucking things up every time he opens his mouth. So he keeps his mouth shut, and after a few moments of silence John swears under his breath, turning away to rake his hands through his hair. _"God,"_ he gasps, covering his face. He looks absolutely devastated.

None of this was supposed to happen.

John comes back to him, each step a nail in a coffin. He still looks horrible, but he meets Sherlock's eyes, and something's changed, now. He's steady as a rock, this is Captain Watson, and Sherlock knows his mind is made up. "Okay," John tells him, almost a lecture. "I'm going to make another deduction."

"Well, do try not to strain yourself."

"Hmm, yeah. Charming." John reclaims his seat on the edge of the bed, folding his hands in his lap. "You think, despite all of this, I should go back to Mary. You think that I'm... happy with her."

Sherlock swallows the words in his throat. What, exactly, is he supposed to say to that? He was at John's wedding. He saw John's face when he made one deduction too many, and he saw John's face the night he came back to life. He saw John be so wrapped up and pleased with _married life_ he forgets Sherlock even exists until he finds him in a drug den.

Sherlock may not comprehend human sentiment, but he is not blind, and he is not _stupid._

But John is still waiting for an answer, one that he apparently has no choice but to give. He can't quite stomach a simple _yes,_ though, so he deflects and dodges it, yet again. "For god's sake, you _married her,_ John-"

"Because you were dead!"

"Really? I managed to plan a wedding and write a speech while I was dead? That's impressive, even for me." It's nasty, and he _knows_ what John means, but he swivels his head away to pick furiously at stray threads and sulk. "I really think that's on you, though, for asking a dead man to be your-"

"I wanted to kill myself, Sherlock."

His throat swells shut.

John sits, watching him without wavering. His features are finally clear, a somewhat ridiculous parallel because Sherlock must now look horrified. He is. He _is_ horrified. "John-"

"Yeah, you didn't deduce that one, did you?" He tilts his head, smiling in that terrible way. "You were dead and I thought it was my fault, and I wanted to kill myself. Mary knows that. She was there."

"I didn't- I. _John."_

"I know you didn't."

 _"John,"_ he gasps again. John had... he did this. He did this to John Watson.

"Yeah," John repeats. "I needed something else, anything else, and Mary was it. I guess that wasn't great of me. And then you came back, and you were such a bastard about it- because you didn't even get it, did you? You hunt an assassin all through London while still bleeding _for me_ and you never managed to figure out that you're important to me, too?"

Sherlock barely follows what John's trying to say. He's still stuck and getting sick over _I wanted to kill myself._

The morphine makes him queasy, and he swallows bile only because he knows just how _much_ it would hurt to throw up.

When he doesn't go on, John takes the opportunity to do so himself, and he looks _destroyed,_ inside out, but honest. He looks honest and it's only then that he realises he hasn't seen him look like that since he'd fallen. "Mary knows that. She knows... she knows all of this, Sherlock, and she was still going to make me watch you die for the second time. She was going to pick me up from hospital and not say a word, she was going to help me plan a funeral and probably let me name our bloody kid after you and she never would've said a word."

The heart monitor is earth-shattering, and announces his increased pulse for the whole world to hear. There's a lawn mower outside and a gaggle of medical students in the hallway and Mycroft's security turns the residents away. John looks at Sherlock and it's horrible, and Sherlock can do just about anything that he puts his mind to but he is fundamentally incapable, down to his very bones, of this.

It would've worked. It could've. Mary wouldn't have hurt John- of that, he's sure- and it could've worked. It should've.

"So- yeah," John rasps. He almost sounds like he's about to cry, but his eyes are clear. "I'm not going back to her, Sherlock."

Just like that.

Just as simple as that.

_I'm not going back to her, Sherlock._

Sherlock waits beneath the surface. He tastes salt water in the back his throat, an old memory from Serbia, from a beach in his childhood. He holds his breath, because he's learned a long time ago that when he thinks it's safest to breathe, that's when he opens his mouth to inhale filthy seawater.

He knows what some sentimental, stupid part of him would _like_ to do. He'd like to wrap himself around John, all arms and legs, to crawl into the space in John's chest where he can't be evicted and take him home to Baker Street and lock the doors so he can never leave again. He'd like to erase Mary, just drag a strip of white-out through all of 2012-2014, to erase St. Bart's rooftop, to erase the entire stupid, horrible, perfect wedding, he wants to grab John's face and make him understand how sorry he is, how much he hates all of this, how sorry he is for breaking it and that he can't make it right.

But he can't do those things, because John told him he's not allowed out of bed, and more to the point he really thinks he might faint if he tries. He grapples for John's hand instead, a very low down second best, and he opens and shuts his mouth like a blithering idiot because he doesn't know what to say.

_I'm not going back to her, Sherlock._

John licks his lips, increasingly uncomfortable. "Er-" He stops, his fingers flexing against Sherlock's. "Please say something."

Oh. It's been minutes since he has, hasn't it? Sherlock swallows again, the silence rasping in his throat.

Come home.

I've missed you.

I'm sorry.

I love you.

I'm so sorry.

I love you and I'm sorry.

Come home.

He opens his mouth, and what comes out is, "What are you going to do?"

John smiles weakly. He shakes his head, looking particularly gutted, and his eyes flicker away. "I don't know. God help me. There's a _baby,_ Sherlock." He swallows hard, but doesn't let go of Sherlock's hand. He doesn't let go. "A baby I'm not naming after you, by the way, so don't even try."

John grins at him, and this time Sherlock can grin back. Quite understandable, that. He wouldn't want to saddle a kid with it, either.

The time passes in the audible beats of his heart, and the angry whir of the lawn mower outside.

John licks his lips again, staring at their hands. "I don't know what I'm going to do," he says again, "but."

Sherlock waits. And John chances a look at him, his smile tentative and his hair sticking up and his eyes bloodshot, and it's the best that Sherlock has ever seen him.

"You think I could start with moving back home?"

He breaks the surface, and breathes his first lungful of air.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is welcome and always appreciated! Stay healthy!!! <3
> 
> [Come say hi on tumblr!](https://problematic-ranowa.tumblr.com/)


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